-The Hindu Why do we not have a clear answer on just how much grain is leaking out of the Public Distribution System? If you're interested in just what ‘leakage' means and how it's worked out, here's a little primer. So first: what is leakage? Since we know anecdotally that many households do not get all the grain they are entitled to, we can assume some is being illegally diverted. It's...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Bihar, along with Chhattisgarh and Orissa, have recorded the highest improvement among all states in the operations of their public distribution system (PDS), measured by the extent of grain leakages taking place. Development economists Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera estimate that only 9.3 per cent of the foodgrains channeled through Chhattisgarh's PDS network failed to reach the intended consumers in 2011-12. This is a substantial reduction relative...

-Economic and Political Weekly   A "high-level" committee makes half-baked recommendations which will rollback the PDS. A ccording to media reports, former Union Minister for Food Shanta Kumar recently disowned the National Food Security Act (NFSA) on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He explained, without blinking, that the BJP had just pretended to support the Act when it was being discussed in Parliament, for fear of the possible electoral consequences of...

-The Hindu Business Line Unlike in the 1970s, the moral outrage over glaring differences has given way to an aspirational ethos For those who have lived in Indian cities long enough, it is difficult to miss the remarkable change in people's tolerance of economic inequality. Back in the 1970s, economic inequality was a major part of the urban discourse. The various dimensions of inequality dominated coffee house discussions, theatre and even popular cinema, contributing...

-Economic and Political Weekly The key to improving the quality of healthcare services in India and reducing costs at the same time can be found by enacting legislation which lays down minimum standards of patient care. In the absence of such standards and the reluctance of health insurance companies to standardise either price or quality, healthcare services continue to be expensive and of doubtful quality. Developing standards of patient care by...